birth
Americannoun
-
births
plural
-
an act or instance of being born.
the day of his birth.
-
the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring; childbirth; parturition.
a difficult birth.
-
lineage; extraction; descent.
of Grecian birth.
-
high or noble lineage.
to be foolishly vain about one's birth.
-
natural heritage.
a musician by birth.
-
any coming into existence; origin; beginning.
the birth of Protestantism; the birth of an idea.
- Synonyms:
- inauguration, genesis, inception, commencement, start
-
Archaic. something that is born.
verb (used with object)
-
births,
present (3rd person singular)
-
birthed,
past participle, past
-
birthing
present participle
-
to give birth to.
-
to assist in giving birth; act as midwife for.
idioms
noun
-
the process of bearing young; parturition; childbirth
-
the act or fact of being born; nativity
-
the coming into existence of something; origin
-
ancestry; lineage
of high birth
-
noble ancestry
a man of birth
-
natural or inherited talent
an artist by birth
-
archaic the offspring or young born at a particular time or of a particular mother
-
-
to bear (offspring)
-
to produce, originate, or create (an idea, plan, etc)
-
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
birthsimple
-
birthssimple
-
have birthedperfect
-
has birthedperfect
-
am birthingprogressive
-
are birthingprogressive
-
is birthingprogressive
-
have been birthingperfect progressive
-
has been birthingperfect progressive
Past
-
birthedsimple
-
had birthedperfect
-
was birthingprogressive
-
were birthingprogressive
-
had been birthingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of birth
First recorded in 1150–1200; Middle English byrthe, from Scandinavian; compare Old Swedish byrth; cognate with Old English gebyrd, Old High German giburt, Gothic gabaurths; cf. bear 1 ( def. ), -th 1 ( def. )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Even more rare is the kind of triplets Craft gave birth to, Passi said: Two of them are identical twins and the third is a fraternal twin.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2026
Their model describes a computational tug of war between two fundamentally different kinds of neural organization, both of which are established even before birth.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 31, 2026
Shortly before the birth of their first child, a doctor agreed to investigate what information might exist about their respective donors.
From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026
Pregnancy and birth involve a level of ceding control for anyone who experiences them.
From Slate ● Aug. 29, 2026
A year after her wedding, Lisa gives birth to a son.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
The city’s eighth ward, which is the poorest in the city and includes neighborhoods like Anacostia, used to have the most births.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
Postpartum psychosis is a medical emergency that affects about one to two women in every 1,000 births, said Sally Wilson, national training coordinator at the UK-based charity Action on Postpartum Psychosis.
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
The fact that it’s an incredibly rare condition that occurs in around one in 1,000 births would have made it easy to shrug it off as an anomaly.
From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2026
This is based on births registered to mothers with foreign addresses.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
But the phoenix does not die, and monstrous births do not resemble their parents.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Double Eagle contributed a sprawling water system and associated royalties to the venture that birthed EagleRock and is involved in its growth plans.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
Wyle: As you’re saying that, that’s what birthed “The Pitt.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
In the wake of the Manhattan Project that birthed the atomic era — and with it, the ever-present threat of nuclear war — people acted immediately to bring attention to this new threat.
From Salon ● Jun. 15, 2026
To display his photographs in rapid succession, Muybridge invented a device that birthed the motion picture.
From Slate ● May 25, 2026
TaShon, the last baby she birthed, was born with extra fingers.
From "Ninth Ward" by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Zika can spread from a birthing parent to their child in the womb and cause congenital disabilities, which notoriously led to panic after an outbreak erupted in Brazil in 2015.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
Like the spine, the human pelvis must balance two competing demands: efficient bipedal walking and birthing large-brained infants.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 11, 2026
The state plans to later expand to additional hospitals and birthing centers.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2026
In the 1920s and 30s the Marine Drive corniche, with its Art Deco buildings was constructed, birthing a uniquely modern architectural style that departed from the earlier Victorian Gothic character.
From BBC ● Apr. 3, 2026
It’s worse for her than it is for me — birthing the twins near killed her.
From "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village" by Laura Amy Schlitz
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
